The ongoing celebration marking the Grand Ole Opry’s 100th anniversary is getting a spotlight at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum thanks to a new exhibit.
“The Grandest Stage: The Opry at 100” will run from Sept. 18 through March 2027.
“The Opry’s status as America’s leading country music radio show … made possible Nashville’s emergence as the undisputed center of the country music industry,” said Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young.
“This exhibit will survey the enduring history of the program, which has survived a century of evolutions in country music and popular culture, major challenges from new media and sources of entertainment, a catastrophic flood and a crippling pandemic.”
Country Music Hall of Fame member Minnie Pearl wore this straw hat, decorated with cloth flowers and dangling $1.98 price tag, at her Opry debut in 1940.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will also host a panel discussion featuring Opry members Vince Gill and Carly Pearce, plus Dan Rogers, senior vice president and executive producer of the Grand Ole Opry. Paul Kingsbury, the museum’s senior director of editorial and interpretation, will moderate the discussion. The program will take place at 2 p.m. Sept. 18 in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Ford Theater.
Tickets will be available on the museum’s website on Aug. 22.
What will be displayed at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Grand Ole Opry exhibition?
The exhibit will feature 100 years of historic and Opry-related artifacts, including the following clothing and instruments:
A wooden steamboat whistle used by the Opry’s founder and longtime announcer, George D. Hay.
A Hohner Marine Band chromatic harmonica that belonged to Dr. Humphrey Bate, whose string band, the Possum Hunters, was the first to play country music over WSM.
The hand-built hammered dulcimer Kitty Cora Cline of Westmoreland, Tennessee, played when she became the first female solo performer on the Opry in 1928.
The 1927 Martin 00-42 played at the Opry by Paul Warmack, a mechanic by trade who led the Gully Jumpers, a hoedown band whose members all came from rural communities around Nashville. The group joined the Opry in 1927 and continued with various lineups until the 1970s.
A 16-inch, metal-based acetate disc containing the first performance of “The Prince Albert Show,” a segment of the Opry broadcast over the NBC radio network in October 1939.
Country Music Hall of Fame member Minnie Pearl’s straw hat, decorated with cloth flowers and dangling $1.98 price tag, worn at her Opry debut in 1940.
A letter from Opry manager E. W. “Bud” Wendell, now a Country Music Hall of Fame member, inviting Country Music Hall of Fame member Charley Pride to become an Opry member in December 1968.
Country Music Hall of Fame member Reba McEntire’s custom-made boots, modeled after a pair worn by Country Music Hall of Fame member Patsy Cline, which McEntire wore when making her Opry debut in September 1977.
The suit worn by Ella Langley at her debut performance at the Opry in February 2023. Langley customized the suit with beads and embroidery in the style of her grandmother’s handwriting.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Minnie Pearl’s hat, Opry artifacts to be on display in new exhibit
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